Emerging superpower rivalry and its consequences, 1945–49

Question 1

Date of Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri

Answer 1

5th March 1946

Question 2

Impact of Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri

Answer 2

He voiced his suspicions of Stalin and the USSR. He said ‘a shadow’ had fallen on Eastern Europe, which was now cut off from the free world by ‘an iron curtain’. The iron curtain was a series of barbed wire and watch towers to cut the Soviet sphere from the Western sphere. Behind that line, he said, the people of Eastern Europe were ‘subject to Soviet influence . . . totalitarian control [and] police governments’. He demanded that an Anglo-American alliance should stop the spread of communism.

Question 3

Impact of Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri

Answer 3

Stalin reacted angrily in defence of his actions. He highlighted the lack of allied help in the past and implied that he needed to provide his own system of protection (like a buffer zone around Russia). Indeed, Russia had experienced two invasions from Germany 1914 and 1941 with huge casualties suffered on both occasions. This explains his interest in establishing a zone of “friendly” or Soviet controlled states in Easter Europe as a buffer against future invasions. The Allies felt this was really a cover for his political motives of expanding communism.